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Tony Stark AN HOUR AGO

A group of rough men finished loading up trucks and started moving them towards the location of their deal. Someone special from out of town was coming to meet them - someone with a lot of money with special needs.

THIRTY MINUTES AGO

Men sat in rolling chairs surrounded by screens, the desks scattered with paper and binders. A knot of bored agents in suits argued over a large drafting table, as operators handled plotting out the routes of things in real time. In one of the nexuses of the New York Air Route Traffic Control someone toggled on their headset microphone.

"This is New York Control to unidentified, please advise your designation and heading."

Moments passed. Another few people settled into chairs, pulling on headsets.

"This is New York Control, unidentified, I repeat, advise your designation and heading?"
"New York Control to United Three-Three, can you visually confirm unidentified at your eleven?"
"New York Control to --."

It continued, voices joining the chorus. Agents sliding into chairs. The military getting contacted.

TEN MINUTES AGO

Tony Stark moved towards the back seat of a car, Happy Hogan trailing behind him. "Happy, let's hustle up, I've got lunch in five minutes."

The beleaguered bodyguard sighed. "Then why did you insist on 'finishing up'?" he complained, with the air of ribbing Stark.

"I was busy, now I have lunch. Simple. Chop chop slowpoke, we're mobile."

Sliding into the seat, there was an almost immediate chime on one of the displays, an aerial map of the New York area. "Boss. Secretary Ross is on the line."
"Deflect and absorb, Friday, I've got a lunch meeting."
"ARTC has elevated an unknown to SHIELD after it entered New York metropolitan airspace twenty minutes ago. Military interceptors could not visually identify anything at the supposed location."
"So get Hill on it, it's a SHIELD problem."
"Miss Hill is already providing operational support. Secretary Ross wants you to come in."
"That sounds like a job for Rhodey."
"Colonel Rhodes was seconded to STRIKE, and is currently assisting in personnell training in Europe."
"Barton? Steve?"
"Barton is currently on leave. And Captain Rogers was deployed five minutes ago to secure the ground area near the unknown."
"Right, he can't fly. I keep forgetting." Stark groaned. "I'm going to have to come in, aren't I?"
"I'll cancel lunch."
Tony Stark The large, mostly empty above-and-belowground parking structure that the weapons deal was taking place in, for the benefit of their mysterious buyer (who had put up a surprising amount of cash and capital up front for the top shelf stuff), had a fourth unmarked van roll in. Nearby, a gentrified warehouse where the weapon deal WOULD have taken place twenty years ago served now as an Amazon shipping hub. The amount of traffic coming in and out of that area shielded the conspirators from street-level suspicion.

Inside the parking structure, the vans began to open, unloading crates in a semicircle. Chitauri exomaterials were worked with simple cabling and output nozzles, a variety of strange and unique weapons combining Earth concepts and alien technology. Physics-defying grabber guns, cutting lasers, concusson cannons - each lovingly created for various purposes.

The other vans sit low to the ground, loaded heavily. When their back doors are opened, large humanoid robots step out, their chests glowing with a purple light and eyes with a cold blue, armed with various weapons on shoulder and arm. One drone, instead of a vertical optic, has a broad LCD screen that looks almost like a large smartphone bolted on the front. The six drones come with a black container carried among them, and another truck unloads six more, the drones taking up sentry positions with wordless, chunky-stepping thrums.

One man with a bulky exosuit featuring a large powered gauntlet, from the bespoke weapons contingent, speaks. "Hey, I thought the boss told you not to show us up."

The smartphone screen on the drone lights up, booting to Android of all things, before FaceTime brings on the face of Ulysses Klaue. "Sorry to burst ya bubble, but this? This is just business. Protecting my investment."

The Vulture goons and Shocker frown and look amongst themselves, before turning to their buyer. "We've got at least a dozen crates more of this stuff ready to go, and can make more to any need you like."

The Klaue Drone steps up, opening the case, and uses its large metal hand to draw forth a single reinforced glass cylinder with metal caps, and a scintillatingly blue ore within. "And this... is the stuff legends are made out of. Strongest metal in the world - Vibranium. I've got a quarter-ton I'm willing to part with, for the right price. You won't get this kind of deal from anyone else - trust me. I'm the only name in the market."

OUTSIDE, MERE MINUTES EARLIER

"Control to Rogers." Mariah Hill's voice comes in, flat and business like. "Confirm your sighting of an Enhanced? We have a mystery power spike in your area. DDC is on standby and Metro PD has been issued cordon orders. We've also put out a notice through Multiversal channels for damage control and troubleshooting specialists - Stark thought it'd be good to see what kind of help comes running."

BACK INSIDE THE STRUCTURE, RIGHT NOW

Main power to the lights on the subterranean level of the parking structure, where the deal is happening, are cut, shrouding the area in darkness. Lit only by the glow of the weapon cores on display, and the bright chest and face-lights of the Klaue Drones.

Klaue starts swearing. "Who the f-"

One of the Vulture goons gurgles and starts crying out as a bola wraps around his neck and lays him out cold with an electric shock, flashing in the darkness with the pop of the stun charge, and the resulting meaty whump of body crashing to the ground.
Steve Rogers                              THIRTY MINUTES AGO                              

     "Steven, I noticed you're having some trouble standing up. Would you like me to call LifeAlert for you?"

     Steve grunted. "No thank you, CLARENCE," he says politely to the AI in his phone, "I'll-"

     Do it yourself, sir?

     "You got it." Steve's fingers curled around the heavy weights. He couldn't remember the last time he'd pushed himself like this. It felt good, though. He was thinking of the kid in Nevada he'd gotten roped up with, an origin chaser looking for a way to be special, even if it cost him his life. That kid had wanted to push himself. That kid had wanted to be the best. It was dangerous as hell. But Steve could admire that kind of desire, even if he couldn't approve of it. Since he'd become Captain America, every time he'd pushed himself had been a moment of great danger for the world, or for America, or for someone. Diving out of airplanes. Diving into aliens. Sudden, destructive ways of pushing yourself. So it was nice to take a break and push himself in a slightly less dangerous way. Maybe work towards challenging Thor's lifting record.

     It took him a few minutes to shove the weights off his chest and sit up. He sucked in a sharp breath and wiped his face.

     "Steven, your heart rate's elevated and you're breathing unsteadily. Would you like me to call LifeAlert?"

     Steve closed his eyes.

     "No thanks, CLARENCE, I'll do it myself." He swung off the bench and hit the shower. He felt like lunch that wasn't catered today. Something from a good old-fashioned deli.

                             TWENTY MINUTES AGO                            

     Steve sat on the corner stoop, eating his pastrami. It was like old times as he watched the cars go by. Sure, they were nicer, faster, more colorful, sleeker. Sure, the kids were dressed in different clothes. Sure, the music was louder. But at the end of the day, it was still Brooklyn. Still the New York City he knew and loved. The pastrami tasted a little more processed than he remembered, and the old couple who'd lived there had died and passed the place on to their son, and then him to his son, but...that was alright. For a few minutes, Steve would enjoy the taste of memories.

     Until he saw a human-shaped silhouette fall out of the sky and land on the roof of a parking structure. Steve sighed.

     "Same old Brooklyn."

                            FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO                            

     "Steven, are you going to tell Mister Stark you're going out?"

     Steve slammed on the hood of his suit. "No, CLARENCE. You can do it for me." He grabbed his shield and headed out the door, narrowly missing CLARENCE's excited beeping.

                              MERE MINUTES AGO                              

     Steve tapped the comm in his ear. "Confirmed. Saw somebody fall out of the sky. Nothing's blowing up yet. I'll wait a minute for anybody coming in before I head inside."

                     EXACTLY ONE MINUTE BEFORE RIGHT NOW                      

     "Well," Steve said, "That was a minute."

     He slung his shield off his shoulder and started heading inside. "Time to go to work."
Ryouma Sakamoto     It's nothing especially out of the ordinary for this world when a woman floats down from the sky and then idles in front of the building. And then she waits. And waits. And waits.

    Eventually a motorcycle pulls over, and Ryouma hops off, removing the helmet and putting his hat back onto his head instead. He seems happy with himself, but Oryou quickly glares at him.

    "Ah, it's a lot slower than you, isn't it?" he laughs.
    "Oryou could have carried Ryouma," she insists.
    "It's alright, these modern vehicles are fun too," he says.
    "Should Oryou just make a straight path now?" she changes the subject, pulling a fist back as if about to punch the ground. Ryouma flails.
    "No, no! No pointless infrastructure damage. Let's just find the stairs down," he says.

    Spotting the Captain, Ryouma waves on his way in. "Captain Rogers, nice to meet you again. Oryou and I will find a way down, I imagine there must be more than one. A pincer might work to our advantage."

    Cut to:

    Ryouma and Oryou are in an elevator headed down to the parking level. Oryou seems annoyed, as she keeps needing to manually float downward to not have the elevator bump into her skull.

    "This way is stupid," she comments.
    "But it's less dangerous," Ryouma smiles.
    "Oryou could have used this metal box to bludgeon the problem instead," she says.
    "Ah... please don't..." Ryouma sighs.
Amon An automobile from the 1920s is on its way to a lunch appointment. A masked man sits in the back of the car, surveying the strange-but-familiar world that passes around him. It's not the first time that Amon has been to a world that was more technologically advanced than his, and it won't be the last he's sure. But it's always so... interesting, to see the differences. To look for opportunities. The sight of pedestrians with their noses in phones, the sleek but less-than-sturdy looking satomobiles, the... exceedingly casual... clothing, with a differently favored cut than he's used to.

The last, he's sure, is cultural rather than a technological development. It is adjacent to what he would expect, but just ever-so-slightly off.

The satomobile swings into the parking lot. The restaurant itself is nothing special, which doesn't surprise Amon because although Tony is obviously an incredibly wealthy man, he's /quite/ certain he's not the snobbish sort.

Good is good, no matter what the wrapping looks like.

But even so...

The cookie cutter brick building and its gaudy, red sign are a bit of an eyesore to the revolutionary.

The rumble of the engine vibrated the car as it sat there. There was a reason they didn't shut it off-- although they're not up-to-date with the local technologes, Amon had one of his men rig a suitable portable telephone. It is portable in the sense that it is crudely rigged to the car battery and uses some phones they bought from a going-out-of-business Radio Shock to interface with the cell phone network.

It is the size of a suitcase and weighs twenty pounds.

The bell attached to the patchwork mobile phone rings obnoxiously, echoing through the cab. Amon surveys the crude phone indifferently and allows the Equalist next to him to pick it up.

Whoever Tony got to call in the cancellation is treated to a technically-workable but potato-quality connection as the assistant indicates who they work for and asks how they can help.
Seras Victoria     The Paladin patrols got lucky today! After weeks and weeks of trying to adapt to night life, Seras Victoria did something weird and decided to go on patrol in the middle of the day.

    That would be a problem for most vampires. But not her.

    Hearing the summons to deploy, she grabs her weapons from the Paladin dispatch vehicle. A massive case slung over one shoulder. A pistol holstered at her hip.

    "I hope whatever's going on isn't too terrible!"

    Well. Her hopes of THAT are dashed the moment she sidles up to the parking garage and spots CAPTAIN AMERICA all dressed up for action strolling in. She's not met him before. His getup might be a bit ridiculous, but that's a superhero on a mission if she's ever saw one.

    She feels confident enough to start walking into the garage itself now, but is making sure to keep her senses primed and attention alert. Which brings her swiftly to the stairs.

    She can hear LOUD TALKING down below that doesn't sound right, even if the specifics are messed up by echoes. So this has her reporting findings into her radio and quickly scouting about the ground level for anything else suspicious, and map out every ramp and stairwell that could be used as an escape point...
Spider-Man     So this is where those weird vans were going. Well, moving a lot of guns like that can only mean a lot of dealing or a lot of shooting or both, and the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, who has recently had a grand total of zero encounters with goons of this scale, isn't going to let either happen. A kitbashed geiger counter is all he needed to trace these guys after his spidey-sense went wild near one of their vans and he got a glimpse of the contents. "Alright, Peter, you got this, you got this..." Spider-Man mutters under his breath, stretching and limbering up and regarding the parking structure like he'd look at a big stage he's about to do a performance on. "Maybe, uh... 'Hey guys, heard this was where to go for some extra arms, I lost four of mine!' No, that's stupid, ugh, they won't get it. Maybe... 'Man, you guys just go farther and farther with the airsoft stuff!' Ugh, no! That wouldn't work. Maybe... Oh!! Yeah, that'd be great."

    "Heyyyy," a voice calls out amid the darkness. "You know you're parking in Manhattan, right? How much do you think it costs to park for twenty to life? Woah, hey-- don't start /shooting each other/ about it, if you're going to shoot anyone then shoot me!" He knows the tension that will escalate between both parties with this sudden turn of events. Did one of these criminal groups just sabotage the other one!? Spider-Man is worried about it, he doesn't want a drop of blood on his hands! So he swings in fast, leaping onto one of the Hammerdrones and firing webs about, mostly at the drone weapons to try to gum them up. "Woah, it's you guys again! I haven't seen you guys since the Expo. You were really cool right up until the jingoism and even less cool after kicking the Asimov habit. I hear you guys are supposed to have four big propellers and a lot of ethical problems these days though, did you guys forget to upgrade?"

    "See, those guys remembered to upgrade from cheap corner glock! Tell them to come back with less guns and more RC controllers and you'll be gold, easy mistake to make." By the time anyone's involved here, Spidey's going to already be in the thick of things. His intent is to focus on trying to incapacitate the weapons on the Hammerdrones and keep the drones between him and the arms dealers so that above all else nobody -- at least no /people/ -- get shot, zipping around and between Hammerdrones and trying to stick at their backs.
Thomas Alva Edison Thomas Alva Edison was in town, because he loves America, and /ANY/ America at that. While HIS America (to him) is the most American, and obviously America Prime (to him), it does not stop him to going to other America's and of course, being fold of them. They are different in some ways, and not so different in others. Of course, as the Presiking buys a dog from a stand, he looks up to see...well, lots of things happening all at once. Such as someone falling into a building, people evacuating from it, and of course, People of various costumes running TO it.

"Here, keep the change. Good dog." he says, and starts eating it as he approaches the building, keeping up to date on what's going on. Out of the crowd come several secret service start walking next to him, "Alright, seems like problems in the basement. Let people funnel in first, and lets filter up and make sure everyone is out first," The Presiking says to his ROBOTIC Secret Service.

Edison focuses on the safety of American's first, and then he can get to where the action is with a clean concious.
Nova Terra     A small cloud in the skies above the city suddenly breaks apart as a somewhat large object passes through it. What that object is though is impossible to tell, as there's nothing to actually see. But I'll give you a hint: It's a ship! An invisible one. No, it's not a plane. The cargo bay door of the invisible starship opens up well before it reaches the ground, revealing the interior of cargo crates, hoverbikes, even a tank and mech of some sort. But the bay is only open for twenty seconds or so before it closes again and the invisible ship rises back up higher into the sky once more.

    Standing on the edge of a building next to the parking structure, the cloaked Nova looks across the gap into the part of the parking structure she can see. According to the dispatch she had picked up, there was something potentially interesting going on here. Nova wasn't familiar with this particular version of Earth, which made this mission a double. Investigate the interesting happens and gather intel on the locals. Reaching an invisible hand up to the side of her visor, Nova quietly reports in, "I'm down. Keep an eye on the air and report any developments."

    Glancing over the levels she can see from her perch, Nova zooms in on them with her visor. Nothing immediately registers... Was the dispatch incorrect? Nova reaches out with her mind...

    And immediately regrets it as a cacophony of internal voices start echoing in her head. She groans quietly, moving a hand to her head. She tries to focus, isolate something of use... Finally she gets something: The underground! Nova pushes the collection of voices away once more, returning them to a dull buzz. Damned major population centers. Always a pain.

    Nova takes several steps back before running and leaping off the edge of the roof. She clears the gap easily enough, going into a roll as she hits the concrete floor of the parking garage level. She quickly jumps to her feet and runs. Her HUD highlights something nearby and Nova turns to look at it. An air vent cover! A quick thought and the grating rips off the vent, moments before Nova jumps in. She slides across the metal vent before hitting a vertical drop.

    Hitting the bottom of the vent with barely a thud, Nova goes still as voices filter in from nearby. A little hard to make out right now, she crawls up to the vent opening and peers out. Her eyes go a little wide at the sight... Is that guy swinging around shooting webs?
Archer EMIYA A lone man in a red coat casually approaches the parking complex, a handwritten note in hand. He quickly glances down on what's written on the paper, double checking the coordinates he'd hastily written down just to make sure he hadn't gotten the wrong place.

There's a deep sigh as Archer realizes what he's doing. Though he might now be acting within the law now, he's still essentially doing the same thing he did while he was alive by throwing himself into dangerous situations headfirst.

It's fine though. It's actually totally different. Not only is he more mature, but he's not doing this alone.

With a bit more of weak assurance that he isn't being an idiot, Archer crumples and tosses the note on the ground before entering the complex, using one of the buildings many elevators to get down to the required level.
Zwei TWO DAYS AGO
    A parking structure is a little ghetto, all things considered. It's the kind of place where metro gangsters sell drugs and human traffickers trade abductees. Warehouses have a kind of charm to them, better associated with high profile weapons deals, classy organized crime, and holding an ex-police or marine's loved one hostage. Yet, the fact that the place that would have been filled with wooden crates, dark after 10pm, and grounds to a mob deal 30 years ago, is now buzzing with shipping drones around the clock, fills someone with so much self-satisfied amusement that they're more than willing to take the alternative grounds. Hiding in plain sight is just obvious; only an amateur discusses something secret in a dark alley instead of a crowded bar.

FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO
    The buyer had of course kept largely anonymous, cards close to the chest. That's how these things work. When they show up, it's with a strange, angular, twelve-wheeled rover type vehicle, with a big heavy cargo hold and atmospheric seals, along with a (currently unmanned) turret up on top, which they certainly didn't drive here, so it's anyone's guess how far ahead it had been planted before being driven out to the spot.

    A lone man in an expensive armani suit, easily dreamed up by anyone familiar with rich, corrupt, boardroom executives is the whole who steps out, so perfectly fitting the image of "big illicit foreign money", gold-plated lighter and cuban cigar to boot, that it's almost as if he were picked specifically to be as unsurprising a sight to everyone possible. There aren't any bodyguards with him. There's a reason for that, but the most ostensible one is: what are they going to do? Rob him for his swiss bank accounts? They're here to make money, not steal his wallet.

TWO MINUTES AGO
    He stands by himself, hands in his suit pockets, puffing away in the cold, concrete gloom, as case after case after case of alien tech is wheeled out the back of the vans, quirking a greying eyebrow at the 'inventive' twists they've clearly taken filling in the gaps with whatever consumer electronics they could get their hands on. It'd be something worth complaining about if only it weren't slightly admirable. If facetime works, why shell out millions for a fully robotic camera? They've got grit, the man thinks to himself.

    He only removes a hand from his pockets to take hold of the Vibranium capsule, turning it over back and forth, back and forth, as if he can ascertain its authenticity with a stare, or that he sees something someone else doesn't. "A quarter ton?" he repeats. "I thought you didn't see quantities of this stuff like that outside of- no matter. I'm not asking about your sources, and you're not asking about mine." he gravels.

    He doesn't immediately give the capsule back. "I've got a blank cheque for that much. Eighty thousand for this, plus . . ." he tapers off, strolling to the back of the cargo rover and pulling down the back ramp with a clattering hiss of hermetic seals. The interior is absolutely stuffed with tech as well, neatly and professionally packed into shelves and storage units to maximize space efficiency. None of it is stamped with any kind of corporate logo or serial.
Zwei     "This up front. You know what this is?" he waves a rough hand to it vaguely. "Matter fabricators. Three-dee printing, except not that chintzy crap you find on hobbyist sites for making figurines or whatever the hell they do these days." He hauls one out roughly the size and shape of a beer cooler, dropping in on the ground and stepping on a recessed pedal that folds it out to about the size of a coffee table. "You've got raw materials. You've got parts. You're telling me you can make more, but not like this. You set it up, your glowy purple crap goes in one end, some scrap you found, two hours later, out comes a brand new piece. No eggheads required. Take whatever you're building, scan it, print off the parts, get some boys to screw it all together, tenfold production capacity. You're not getting this shit off the shelf even out there." He makes a hand gesture around himself to vaguely specify the Multiverse. "This is primo, exclusive, insider tech."

ONE MINUTE AGO
    "Damn right you're gonna make more. I'm buying per unit, so you're gonna roll as much of this off the line you can spare, and I'm gonna keep you in money. You're gonna have all this money and all these boys, and go 'hey wait, couldn't we be making way more if we had more of these things?' and then you're gonna come to me, and we'll discuss terms for *all* the Vibranium, and I mean *all* of it." Examining the back of the rover (which he allows), they also find extremely high tech mining equipment, penetrating material scanners, 360 blueprint capture setups, and ore purifiers amongst other things. "So-"

NOW

    The lights crap out. The whole parking unit is plunged into darkness. One of the Vulture goons goes down, ostensibly for a setup and bust, but the smoking man merely sighs, drops his $300 cigar, and stomps it out with his $4000 shoes, grinding it like an especially stubborn tick. "Do you fucking mind?" he growls, to nobody in particular at first, but then a kid in a red suit and some hot lines has kicked his way in before he's even done looking back up. "What's the point of doing this out of the way if you come busting in here anyways? If you don't want nobody getting shot at, why don't you run off right now? The hell do you think you're gonna do with all this stuff anyways, kid? You think the corner police can scoop it up and take it back to the station?"

<<Them or him?>>
||Him. We need them with their limbs attached to continue production.||
<<Fair point.>>
Tony Stark As Ryouma and Oryou's elevator door opens, the basement is in total chaos. The bottom floor is the least populated car-wise, but on most floors above people are exiting their vehicles in a rush, or trying to drive out of the lot in a real hurry. Above, Steve Rogers starts jogging in and people stop to ogle the Star-Spangled Man With A Plan, because if there are two constants in the world, it's that there is never a clean evacuation, and that people will rubberneck at the most inopportune times.

Thankfully, PRESIKING Thomas Alva Edison deploys Secret Service robots which, quite frankly, are almost normalized in the New York of today. One child even points at one and goes 'Iron Man!' while their mother shoos them towards escape.

There's enough confusion that people going DOWN are almost more notable than those going up, but that's because you can look to the helpers, the people going towards the danger, and see heroes.

Or idiots.

One or the other.

Down below, the Klaue Drones (Which are, in fact, customized Hammer Drones from years ago at the Stark Expo) are the first to react, as the Vulture goons start picking up showcase weapons to aim them at the arriving people.

Klaue's FaceTime lead drone immediately starts bellowing laughter. "C'mon, you little shit. You're no hero - just some chaser in a hoodie. But I like your spunk. So I'll kill you quick." The Klaue Drone levels its wrist gun at Spidey, just in time for a 'click-clunk-clack' sound to fill the air, sadly.

Because the armament is all webbed up. "Damn. Fine. Slow it is."

The hammer drones each fire a set of flares from their backs, the hot red light filling the chamber, and revealing why the Vulture goons are so slow on the draw - three of them, already, have been bludgeoned or incapacitated to the ground, by a figure in a black suit.

With pointy ears?
Batman?

No. Not batman. More cat-like. The 'unknown enhanced' with the pointy ears reaches behind his back, drawing a telescopic spear whose shaft extends, and whose tip glows with a soft blue light, and an oval shield of black. "Klaue. Too much of a coward to show your face in person." The mystery figure challenges, his own accent thicker still than Klaue's odd Belgian/South African mix.

The Hammerdrones not featuring FaceTime phone rigs immediately split - engaging in interdictive fire on those people moving in on the stairwell, while others move to squad up around the Mystery Buyer/Seller's rover as protective insurance. Shocker - the Vulture goon with the exosuit and powered gloves - takes a swing at the agile Spider-Man with an electro-powered piston fist, before shouting. "The fucking Avengers are here! Yes, yes, obviously we want it all, but this deal is fucked. We gotta go!"

Klaue seems to take a hint too. "Alright. You got my number, yeah? We'll chat in person. Which means you - and yoah" that's a very technical term, 'yoah'. "kit need to skedaddle before Stark and the Avengers swoop in to make us all look like idiots."

Black Panther shouts. "No! The vibranium is mine - and so are you, Ulysses Klaue!"
Steve Rogers      Steve nods at Ryouma and heads downstairs at a jog. There's not a lot of time for pleasantries, but he spares a moment to say, "Nice to see you again, too, Mister and Missus Sakamoto," including mispronouncing it as 'Sakkamato' like a proper 40s American. The shield's out before the lights are, but when the sound of gunfire bounces up the stairwell, the rest of the people on the stairs get to see Steve skip down the next flight. They lose sight of him a moment later.

     Gunfire pours into the stairwell as Steve Rogers comes sailing down it, riding the shield like a surfboard.

     He's not doing any tricks or anything. He's just balancing to get down there as quickly as possible. The second he hits the bottom of the stairs and the bullets start flying, Steve steps on the shield and kicks it forward into the lead goon with the gun. It's dark, but thankfully, there's those flares to make his targetting easy.

     The shield rebounds back to his hand. He snags it out of the air to block a few more bullets coming in for Seras and anyone else lagging behind him, moving forward. He advances, grabs the gun, and punches the second goon in the face with it, discarding it and taking up his usual, reflexive, heroic stance.

     "I think what he's gonna do with it is turn it over to SHIELD," Steve says to the man in the suit, "Isn't that right, son?"

     "Now everybody just put your weapons down and we can resolve this nice and peacefully-"

     'The vibranium is mine!'

     Steve clicks his tongue. Great.

     Now it's Complicated.
Seras Victoria     Seras is not one of the Avengers!

    But she's here, alright. After scoping out the parking garage, she decides to take one of the ramps, bolting down it at high speed after assembling her Harkonnen Cannon and attaching its ammo pouch to her belt. The case will have to be left behind for now!

    And so she comes WHOOOSHING down the descend ramps too quickly to need to worry about staying behind cover. Down into the darkness she goes!

    And down there she DOES setup next to one of the armored vehicles and takes stock of what's going on.

    The answer: UTTER CHAOS. What the HELL?!

    As always, Paladin missions throw all notions like common sense and strict procedure to the wayside. Gone are the policies and procedures of the police. Gone is the simplicity of Search and Destroy. She's supposed to MAKE SENSE of this and figure out who's friend and foe on the fly.

    And so she decides. Anyone who's dressed in flamboyant primary colors is PROBABLY a friend. Those robots flying around are UNQUESTIONABLY problems.

    And so, in a few moments, she hoists the mighty Harkonnen cannon, a weapon that's longer than she is tall, its barrel easily as thick as her limbs.

    A thunderous *BOOOOOOOOM* echoes to accompany the brilliant muzzle flash of her sending a 30mm Depleted Uranium shell for one of the Hammer Drones deploying flares!

    "A bit late to not look like idiots!" She exclaims quite suddenly, surprising herself.

    It's probably Spidey's banter rubbing off on her a little.
Ryouma Sakamoto     Chaos! The awful kind. The kind where there's robots shooting at people, and people already fighting them, and also rich businessmen and goons and tech vendors with vans full of fancy guns.

    "They call this normal?" Ryouma muses to himself.
    Oryou side-glances at Ryouma.
    He reconsiders his stance.

    It's not long before he has to deal with the gunfire, too. Well, they, because Oryou is up front before he can say anything, using her body as a shield for Ryouma. She seems to be taking it worse than usual, probably because of that vibroblade wound.

    "Oryou, I need a path to the spearman," he asks.
    "Huh-uh," Oryou says.

    Oryou takes a deep breath. She releashes a gush of blue-black flames in a straight line, straight for a few of the Hammerdrones, trying to force them away or to focus their attention on her.

    Ryouma uses the opportunity to run ahead, trying to reach Black Panther - making sure his hands are empty and that he comes off as unarmed and peaceful.

    "Excuse me! Do you have a moment to explain what this is all about? The ah... "Avengers" would really like to know, if that rings any bells."
Thomas Alva Edison     Once people are out, and things get...COMPLICATED...

    Edison fans the Secret Service out. "Cover the ways out of that basement, stop anyone that isn't me, the Avengers, or Paladins from coming out. Report anyone coming first." He gives orders to the robots, before turning to follow Captain America and the rest down.

    Upon hitting the ground, and upon Steve's orders for people to stand down, Edison knows that never works. So, Edison's shoulders light up, casting a light down on everything. He takes a step forward, and another as they start shooting, his hands sparking with the power of DC CURRENT.

    Edison's hands flare out, aiming to send a wide arch of electricty infront of him, aiming to try and start frying or damaging the Robots so the rest of them could get through faster.

    "I am Thomas Alva Edison, and this man, Captain America gave you a order. Also, I like that kid in the red, he's got spunk." A pause, "Wisdom could use some work though, don't you agree Captain?"
Amon Amon isn't in on... all of this. This isn't his territory, and isn't his business. It's just lunch. The other side of that coin though, is all of the ruckus he can hear down the road. His assistant puts down the receiver and explains the situation to him. He nods, and directs the driver to take them down the street past the barricades they're setting up. After a moment more's thought, he retrieves a hand radio from his belt and calls in some... back-up. The last time he got involved in something like this, he sorely wanted better than this.

The Equalists cruise on past the cordones that are being set up. They assume this will be allowed for the simple reason that this just seems to be how these things work here. The satomobile idles for a while, before a truck rumbles in along behind them and parks there.

He rises and moves to the back of the truck, issuing instructions. While he climbs into the back of the new vehicle, Amon's people depart from his company to scout the situation in the parking building.

As he straps himself in and begins the start-up sequence, Amon reflects that this entire scenario really is sort of out of a little boy's fantasy. Although he would not for an instant suggest that his suits were as nice as Tony's-- it was still something he couldn't help but get a little excited about.

Even odds were, Tony would be here or be aware of it. This was Stark's town-- and he was certain that this was an opportunity to make the sort of theatrical entrance he was hoping to when he introduced this little toy to the other man.
Spider-Man     Spidey's responses are as quick and witty as one might expect when he's questioned. "I was thinking more 'Damage Control' than 'police'. I mean, I'm a big fan of Marie Curie, but better safe than sorry!" He replies to the mystery buyer among efforts to dodge around fire. "Woah woah woah! Work on that overheating problem!" He shouts, leaping back off just fractions of a second before his flesh gets boiled, instead getting only lightly blistered. "You know, if you like my moxie, I bet I could give you a better delivery in person! Just make sure you're in Lyft distance, I really don't want to do a distance Uber."

    Focusing and jabbering at the various Klaue drones leaves him open to a strike from the Shocker, which knocks him out of the middle of a flip hard. "AAAAA-- OOF! Gah!" He makes pained noises bouncing off of a few cars, bruising badly, before slamming onto the ground somewhere near Captain America. He's clearly out of his depth in a major way, used to fighting random goons. He has to take a moment to right his goggles before he realizes who's in here with the shield. "...W-woah! It's you! It's /Captain America/!! It's really you-- Yeah! Yeah, you're right!" He calls out, snapping a web towards the Vibranium capsule, be it in the hands of the buyer or a Hammer/Klauedrone, and trying to yank it with tremendous, superhuman force to snatch it up! "You got it sir!" 'Sir' already.

    He's giddy with the idea that this might be a chance to /show off/ with an AVENGER(!!!) here. Who's /this/ new guy! "Hey, come on-- Getting into crimes while dressed in /full-body all black/? That's a little on the nose isn't it? Do you have a big sack with a dollar sign on it too?" If he's gotten the Vibranium he's going to try to toss it off to one side and blast it with webbing to keep it out of anyone's hands -- and then leap /directly/ into battle, going to try to web up the mystery man before he takes down any more people with his spear, and spraying about to try to deal with any of those weapons he can get eyes on!
Nova Terra     Amidst the chaos that has broken out in the underground parking garage, it's not hard for Nova to force the grate off the vent she's been hiding in. I mean, who's going to notice it with all the gunfire and shouting? Nova slides out of the vent and drops silently to the ground. She dashes across the space between the wall and the large truck nearby, barely avoid a few stray shots sprayed in her direction. She presses herself up against the side of the large vehicle, before jumping and hauling herself up onto the top. She immediately freezes at the sight of the turret, but quickly realises that it's not manned.

    Stalking invisibly up to the edge at the rear of the truck, Nova glances around as she takes in the fight through her visor. Definitely a huge mess. Some people she recognises, like the girl with the cannon and Lionhead. Most she does not. However, as her visor sights in on the man in the expensive suit, an alert pops up indicating the cylinder he's holding: Unknown. Nova is a little surprised, given this world's apparent technology level.

    Judging by what she'd seen and heard so far, it seems the man in the suit was part of the deal. Which means Nova has no qualms about trying to deprive him of the unknown material. Nova reaches out with a hand and her mind, silently gripping the cylinder with her telekinesis before suddenly trying to yank it free of the man's grip and flying into her own.
Archer EMIYA      Archer makes it to the floor where all the fun is, and is almost instantly greeted with a hail of gunfire. Amazing.

They take little to no time getting the hell out of dodge, finding refuge behind a nearby car as they take a moment to assess the situation.

It's a bit dark, but with the various flares and other sparse light sources Archer feels confident enough in his ability with the bow.

An arm is raised, and a bow materializes in their hand, followed by what clearly seems to be a mundane sword in the other. It doesn't stay a sword long though, as it's quickly reformed into what can only be roughly described as an arrow.

"Stay clear."

Archer gives an extremely brief warning to those around him before loading the sword-arrow into his bow and letting it loose, aiming for a torso of one of the robots.
Tony Stark Black Panther is an agile, acrobatic fighter, and while his spear is a whirr of deadly grace, and his shield weilded both as impermeable wall and parrying/bashing aid both, he does seem to show some slight mercy to the Vulture goons, who are just dudes in street clothes and maybe a protective vest.

The Hammerdrones are not so lucky, and his shining weapon pierces the chestplate near the purple reactor casing, before a loud 'WHUMP' of force explodes the machine outward - and sending the purple reactor into criticality, sending lancing beams of light all around, as the apparently Chitauri power core starts tearing up the ground and surrounds with cutting beams of random energy before exploding in a violent fireball.

The Panther leaps through it, landing before Ryouma - whom he pauses.

"The Avengers are not my concern. This is a matter of honor - and vengeance. Step aside, or I will go through you."

Sakamoto is then saved from further gunfire from a Hammer Drone as the Panther uses his shield to take the shots, before throwing his spear, explosive kinetosonic tip active, into the next drone.

Meanwhile, the Vulture goons load up half their kit into the back of a truck while Klaue's hammerdrones - the ones whose weapons aren't webbed up - spray automatic weapons fire and shoulder howitzers at people who break cover - provided by stairwells, cars, and the like.

However, the raw outpouring of people responding to this act start cutting down the number of drones quickly: one eats a gigantic shell from Seras and just explodes, without reaching crticality. Klaue's personal drone sweeps off the webbing from its arm and joins in, while an extremely loud sound starts playing from all the drones - sort of like heavy metal mixed with some passable freestyle rap. "You dumb bastards, I'm not even here. That means this is free. It means that you've got nothing. You want this to end well? You let me and my friends go, or I'll set off all the powah" another extremely technical term "cores on these heah drones, and you'll be writing 'to whom it may concern' letters to a whole city block. Ain't gentrification grand?"

The Vulture guys start peeling out in their vans and testing the exits manned by the Secret Service and Amon's troops, Shocker hanging out the back of one after trading blows with Spider-Man.

But it's not Klaue's declaration that really gets things to go that last few steps off the chaotic edge. It's the young webslinger going for the vibranium can, with Nova similarly playing tug-of-war with it, leaving the sticky, web-stuck container of glowing ore twirling slowly through the air towards a dark wall, caught between Spider Man's superhuman momentum, and Nova Terra's extreme psychic prowess halting the real course of physics.

And Panther has had enough of that. He pulls a bead off his shielded wrist with his now-free hand, throwing it towards Captain America and Spider-Man, where it erupts into a large grenade-like blast of force, and the suited hero sprints at top - and in this case, it's a suit-enhanced sprint that leaves Captain America turning his head with the agility in play - speed towards the container.

"I will not play games with you, Captain! Release the Vibranium to me, and we have no quarrel! Call off your boy!"
Steve Rogers      Well, the kid's...enthusiastic. That brings a smile to Steve's face. He gives the kid orders over the radio, and the kid proceeds to go completely against them. Steve shakes his head, bringing up his shield to deflect a shot, casually punches aside another Vulture goon, and moves in to block a shot for the kid. He gives out orders as Klaue starts making his declaration. As soon as he's in the way, though, Panther throws the grenade, Steve moves to try and jump on it, it explodes, and it sends Steve flying backwards and probably into Spider-Man, too. But he's Captain America - you can't keep America down for long. He's back on his feet in no time, an acrobatic half-flip forward.

     "Honor and vengeance don't give you the right to ignore sovereign borders," Captain America says, raising his fists, "And you're not taking that vibranium."

     Steve moves forward, his fists swinging in hard. Panther's fast, and he's agile, so Steve goes for limiting movement - leading punches, leading kicks, knee shots, and other things to keep Panther moving the way Steve wants him to move.

     "Klaue's got enough power in there to level two city blocks!" He shouts, at Panther and Nova and Spidey, "We can't let him just walk away with that!"

     He swings at Panther. "And we can't let innocent people get hurt! Sorry, but your honor's not worth their lives! So either you're willing to help us!"

     Steve moves in for a backhand with his shield. "Or you're getting out of the way."

     Another swing.

     A pause.

     "And he's not one of ours," he adds, somewhat lamely.
Amon The mecha tank rolls out of the back of the heavy truck Amon's men carted it in on. The masked man himself adjusts levers and knobs to steer it into the parking garage. This is a problem for anyone attempting to exit the parking garage, because the mecha tank is large enough that it fills an entire lane floor to ceiling all by itself. Its reach is plenty enough to get at the other, as well-- consequently it's not his /people/ that are the actual hazard.

This, he decides, is a good time to test the properties of the local satomobiles. One of the mecha tank's arms rises to level the center of its "hand" towards one of the vans, firing a spinning disk that unfurls a number of electrified wires-- a sort of mechanically weighted electric bola, not dis-similar to those used earlier here.

The opposite arm swings around towards one of the other vans -- Amon presumes that at least one person will be daring enough to try to simply swing around through the opposite lane and crash through the entry gate in spite of his presence. The arm plunges inward for a moment as if merely to seize the presumed-inevitable vehicle and then ... fires?

Yes, it fires itself on a reel to give itself some extra punch and grab at whatever unfortunate vehicle is there like some sort of supercharged claw arcade machine.
Zwei     The man who is every Man In A Suit chuckles, stepping off the dead remains of his cigar and withdrawing his thick fingers from his tailored pockets. "Klaue, my good man, you seem to be mistaken here. I appreciate your concern and all, but if I gave two shits about the Avengers, I wouldn't be here, yeah?" Despite the gunfire echoing down the stairwell and the rushed panic of the men he's supposed to be making a deal with scrambling over one another to pack up, the man betrays no sign of anxiety. No elevated pulse, no harder breathing, no perspiration.

    When the Spider-Man literally swings in, kicking aside Klaue's robo goons with trivial ease, he snipes the capsule directly in his hand, getting a clear hit with his webbing. When he yanks back to pull it flying out of the man's fingers, he suddenly tightens his grip, and Peter finds where he had expected to overpower him, he instead drags the entire man, still as a statue, forward by several inches. He probably isn't aware that Nova has telekinetically grabbed the same thing from behind him, so it feels like the man in the suit is tremendously heavy, certainly exacerbated by his completely steady, visually relaxed posture, as if he were a sculpture.

    Nova's own insight into his mind on her part is disturbingly unhelpful. In the crowd of gunmen and goons, he is nothing. His thoughts are bright white light and television static, which doesn't quite seem to correspond to him. Not exactly. It's like a field around him. Around her. A fuzzy cloud of consciousness enveloping the place. It grows louder --the incandescent roar of distant stars, faint and grainy, glimpsed only through the woefully inadequate ears of SETI.

    "Granted, I haven't been completely up front with you." He says to Klaue, looking from the tablet to Spider-Man to the tablet again. "Let's clear everything up."

    The man and his suit --the suit and the man that is every man who wears it-- fizzle away. His skin comes off with receding trails of amber glow like burning paper, revealing bleached, artificial white underneath. His slicked back hair disintegrates, letting down a stream of nickel and chrome strands. His clothes de-resolve in colour-warped static, giving way to a sleek, close fitting set of jackets, boots and skirt in black and carbon grey, accented with gold. The subtle yet important organic gleam and natural saccade movement leaves his eyes, becoming fixed, cold, and gold, irises no more than concentric apertures, adjusting with complex, minute movements.

    <<"Just so we're clear, I'm still buying, and you're still paying.">> says Weiss, her voice that of every female AI ever, but tinged with a creeping edge of being too real, like the way a paranoid schizophrenic imagines Siri is spying on him. <<"I thought it'd be more comfortable for you if I presented something you were used to, but that seems to have backfired. You naturally assumed that some rich Hungarian in a suit would logically run from super powered law enforcement. That's fair. Since the cat's out of the bag though, I'll let you know--">>

    <<"I don't take any shit from the Avengers.">>
Zwei     The vibranium canister finally slips out of her hand, tumbling bizarrely through the air between the two heroes accidentally contesting it at the same time. Looking to Black Panther, she laughs with the sound of an answering machine having gone hideously rogue and taken control of all the windows and doors. <<"Whoops! Look at that! I guess you were wrong about the Vibranium being yours, huh?">> In the blink of an eye, her silhouette warps and folds where the light shifts redwards, and disappears into a hypercube-esque blip, taking her neatly out of the incoming blast of force, and then putting her directly in his way, appearing out of thin air close enough to barely stop nose to nose.

    <<"Seriously though, You wanna buy? I'll give you a pity discount. Just kidding~!">> She claps her hand off on the edge of her jacket when Spider-Man resumes talking. <<"Aaa, I know, I know! It's super cliche! It's what people expect to see though, you know?">> she suddenly asks spiderman, eyes flicking up to him as if he has a laser sight painted on his chest, rather than is if a person is looking at him. <<"See though, I didn't just let them pick this place because it fit the atmosphere and all. Right? It's empty and out of the way here, but it's not my pick to keep away from the Avengers.">>

    <<"I was being nice and deciding I'd keep them at a safe distance away from me.">>

    A piece of the parkade wall melts away. Grainy grey concrete shifts from its poorly lit corner spot, and a shape wearing yellow asphalt lines unfolds from a crouch, smoothly and silently expanding high enough that it scrapes a gouge into the ceiling. The colours of urban parking fizzle away from a matte black exterior shot through with barely visible subsurface hexagonal patterns, like the armour of a knight and the chassis of a jet fighter laid over a barely humanoid frame, partially hunched to a 'mere' fifteen feet tall, characterized by reverse jointed legs, disproportionately massive arms, huge talons for fingers and feet, a forward chest, and a 'horned' head with only a single, glowing, optic band. When it speaks, its contrasting voice is the thrumming and crackling, bass scream of a turbine melting down inside a reactor core --a tumbling ammunition fire through a subwoofer in the shape of words.

    ||"If you intend to fight me, you will be grievously disappointed."|| Asche thunders, ploughing through a concrete pillar and scouring the underside of the ceiling as he moves to smash Black Panther out of the way with the back of his wrist and then snatch the Vibranium inside his oversized palm.

    ||"If you want to escalate further, I can do that."||
    <<"If you want to escalate further, I can do that.">>
Thomas Alva Edison     Thomas Edison hears the threat...hmm!

    This sounds like a job for...THOMAS ALVA EDISON! Edison quickly reaches down towards one of the drones, and with his massive MAN-LION hands tears the chest open. Tony's shown him a bit of the new stuff, and his own science advancement has taught him to do things like...rip off Babbage completely, and then make DC powered Steam Drones. Sometimes, remarketning a thing with improvements is like inventing!

    The core would be here, and wiping his forehead, he grabs some of his tools, and gets to work. Working to find the connection. Okay, it's a signal reciever that activates something that overloads the core. All he needs is to...take this out, okay. He has it out and then he tears out some wires, and reconnects them to a battery nearby.

    Without a button, he grabs the things hand, ripping it off and jury rigging it to act as a switch. Taking a breath, he sighs...okay this SHOULD work.

    He presses all of the fingers down, except for the middl eone to activate the device, which fires out in all directions a radio wave that would attempt to cause the core to overload the switch, instead of cause a critical core collapse...aiming to fry all of the cores of the device, the dead switches, and solve the problem...with minimum explosives.

    "HA! AC POWER IS SAFE!? DC POWER CAN'T BE USED TO MAKE EXPLODING EVIL ROBOTS!" a beat, "Well, okay, I guess it could, but the point is, SCREW YOU TESSLA!"
Ryouma Sakamoto     The drones threaten to selfdestruct. Ryouma, and Oryou, regroup and stop their attacks. Edison says he'll handle the drones, and the Captain wants Ryouma helping out the 'kid' in the red suit keep the weird material safe.

    "Ah, Oryou, this is all you," he says.
    She nods, and then rockets towards the canister.

    Just as the shoe drops, and something massive forms to intercept it. All of Oryou's strength is focused in a point, like she's a bullet. Her flight only mildly alters its course - she can't snatch the container AND deal with the massive hand.

    So she's just going to smash into the massive hand instead. Maybe through, if it isn't ready for her.

    On the other hand, that'll probably leave the Vibranium where it is, to continue being contested by Nova and Spider-Man.
Nova Terra     Nova was not expecting someone else to try and grab the canister at the same time! Judging by the webbing attached to it, it's pretty obvious who's trying.

    Deciding the time for stealth is over, Nova appears in a wash of blue light as her cloak deactivates. She places an armored boot against the edge of the truck as she launches herself off it. Using her own suit-enhanced speed, she makes a dash towards the oddly physics defying (partly her own fault) canister. She's probably an even match for the cat in black, but that proves unnecessary as the shield guy intercepts him. That just leaves the spider guy.

    Mid-stride, Nova deftly reaches down to her leg and pulls free one of the small cylinders attached to her suit. She presses the button on top and then flings it in Spider-Man's direction. The small light on the device flashes a few times, before exploding in a disorientating blast of light and energy.

    Even as she hopes her high-tec flashbang is taking care of the Spider, Nova sees the large machine appear from seemingly nowhere. Camoflauge!? Nova doesn't recognise it, nor really does she care. She sees it reaching for the canister. She won't reach it in time!

    Suddenly something flashes through the air ahead, hitting the large arm to keep it from grabbing the floating Vibranium container. There's still a chance! Nova seemingly vanishes, leaving behind a roughly Nova-shaped cloud of blue psychic energy as she channels her powers for a final burst of speed to cover the remaining distance. Reappearing just near the canister, Nova leaps to try and grab hold of it.
Seras Victoria     Seras has her orders! Cut off any escape for these goons! Seal the exits!

    That's easier said than done. She has one ramp. Archer has whatever he's chosen to guard...

    But she's just STANDING there, while the other guys have vehicles and robots and stuff!

    And so, when she sees plenty of the crimninals loading gear into their vehicles, she does the smart thing and RELOADS THE HARKONNEN with a fresh round!

    And once again the vampire girl takes aim and fires. THIS TIME, though she's aiming at one of the vehicles... specifically, the wheel assembly and axle. It's too dangerous to go for engine parts due to the danger of fuel leaks, and using explosives may harm their suspects. And so this round is simply a heavy slug that doesn't go boom.
Archer EMIYA      Archer is instructed to give cover to the PRESIKING, and give cover he shall, albeit very reluctantly.

A brown head with white hair peeps up from behind its car-shaped cover as it tries to locate Edison, which isn't a very hard task given that the man is built like a wall and has a lion for a head.

With a mere thought, the bow they were holding dissipates and Archer sprints on over towards Edison's location, skidding to a stop as he raising a single arm out in front of him.

It's somewhat hard to catch given the current commotion, but the words 'Rho Aias' are muttered from the red servant's lips before a giant pink barrier is erected in front of Archer, shielding both him and the Presiking from attacks.

"Alright, continue doing your thing while I literally stand here and possibly die for you."
Tony Stark If earlier it was chaos, then the situation in this humble parking garage is 'active dumpster inferno, ft. smouldering tyres on the hook.

Amon, in his mecha-tank, rolls right into the parking garage on the word of Tony Stark, and in two swift movements, disables one rolling truck by arresting all momentum with an electric blast that shuts down the engine with a tremendous 'POP!'. The other gets vehicularly clotheslined by the platinum fist and tow-line, sending both tow-fist and truck rolling down into parked cars and skidding to a stop.

Simultaneously, Thomas Alva Edison, PRESI-KING, starts pulling apart a Hammer Drone's chest core while Archer and Seras Victoria cover him with their enhanced (or simply overgunned) weapons - or, in Archer's case, block a trio of howitzer shots with the Seven-Layered Shield, ripples forming from the incredible explosive ordinance simply being stopped cold in mid-air. They all buy time for the genius scientist (with a lion for a head) pulling apart Klaue's drone and setting up a DIRECT CURRENT Solution to the problem of Klaue's threat --

And when the wave goes out, all of the remaining Hammer Drones drop insensate as their Chitauri cores go dark all at the same time, crumpling with heavy THUDS to the ground.

The FaceTime camera on the fore of Klaue's personal drone ends screen-up, cracked. it's actually literally a cell phone bolted on the front. The mad weapons dealer laughs and laughs and laughs, bellowing with Zwei's reveal.

"Oh, yew thought I was onna them namby-pamby soldiers of fortune? Maybe in another life, love. I'm a changed man, and this is a changed world. I'll tell you what - you bring your fine self... Selves? Down to my humble abode, and we'll talk business for the whole lot. Ohhhh yes, b-e-a-utiful, we will be in BUSINESS!"

Klaue's mad laughter continues for a moment. "Oh, roite, I'll call us square for the Vibranium. No hard feelings, eh? Can't bet on the Avengers busting us - if you get it, its yours clean. If not? You've got my numbah, love."

The phone cuts, and the internals fry shortly after, the screen melting in on itself with some sort of heating agent burning out the internals, so it can't be traced back to Klaue too-too easily.
Spider-Man     Ooof. This is a mess. Spidey can't yank the Vibranium like he'd hoped, and trying to engage the man in black was getting him bombed. His tug on the Vibranium goes limp when his body does too, as a huge blast knocks through his body hard. "Oof!" He certainly didn't at all have what he thought he did. When he slams hard into a pillar, he leaves a little spider-dent in it, before struggling to his feet and renewing his grip on the Vibranium. He has to duck behind the pillar when the Klauedrones spray, letting out a quick "Yipe!" He shouts back out towards the mystery man, "It's Spider-Man actually, not boy! I know it's easy to make the mistake. And remember the hyphen, too! That part's actually really important for getting clear Google results, the other ones are furries and I don't wanna give /you/ of all people the wrong idea."

    He gasps and pants a little, and eventually says, "R-right! Yes sir Captain America! I'll, um, try to get away with it!" He says urgently to Steve. "But really! If I just changed up the mix, I swear, this guy's weird armor would be-- Gah!!" He dives hard, trying to cover up his body as much as he can with his arms while he sliiiiides along the web he still has connected to the Vibranium, and tries to get it out of the man's hands -- and it does come loose! Sort of. Weiss releasing it is just as much an aspect of the chaos here as anything else.

    What this means now is that Spider-Man is sort of skidding like a man on a jetski along the path of the Vibranium towards Nova, who is decloaking and tossing flashbangs at him. His Spider-Sense goes /WILD/. His goggles lock up entirely, their lenses shutting abruptly after the first moment of flash, letting in enough to stun him but not enough to knock him out. He's having to go partially on his hearing, and mostly on his broader senses; Nova is less a shape and more a mass of danger. He still has the web on the capsule -- unless Nova can get a really good knife and a solid couple of seconds -- and intends to keep trying, doing his best to leave the explosive situation to Captain America in order to prove he can grab this thing!

    He shakes his head and his goggle-lenses open a little bit. "Come on!! Are you one of those cat people too? Look, I know I'm Spider-Man, but that's not a convention invitation!" He says in the general direction of Nova. "I gotta do this for Cap! He /said/ to!" He leaps hard towards the ceiling, activating his WALL-CRAWLING to attach hard and keep Nova from getting too far away... And then both goggles go WIDE at the emergence of Asche. "H...holy /shit/!" He whispers, then lunges with his second hand, trying to start webbing Asche's arm directly to the nearest chunk of ground. While the titan may have huge amounts of strength, this webbing is the kind of thing that might be used to keep a bridge up, it's no laughing matter. Spider-Man has suspicions that it won't effectively restrain the huge robot...

    So the other ends of the webs attach to huge chunks of concrete from the column he just broke, trying to fill his palms with a horrible, sticky mass of concrete, making it far more clumsy to get a /solid/ grip on the container, and keeping it from getting into his high-security grip.
Amon Now the good news is, that Amon stopped some trucks.

And the bad news is, Amon stopped some trucks in the direct path of where he needs to go and he is in a vehicle bigger than any of them. He activates the treads and pushes forward, trying to shuffle the vans out of the way. Unfortunately it's a parking garage and there really just isn't... /room/, especially from the position that he's in.

Apparently there's something that can blow up the city underneath them, and in the meantime people are fighting over this canister full of some-presumably-valuable material. Amon just assumes it's platinum because that's obviously what you build war machines out of, right? He's never heard of 'vibranium' before.

Grunting, he resumes attempting to clear the obstacles out from in front of him.
Tony Stark MEANWHILE

Black Panther and Captain America trade blows. It's a whirlwind of punches, ducks, and bashes, as the two master fighters fight to a stand-still. Black Panther is incredibly agile, and strong to match, focusing more on quick jabs and using the edge of his shield as a second spear.

He cartwheels left, and Cap's shield comes in in a sure blow -- only for Black Panther to catch the shield with his bare hand, struggling and locking with Captain America.

The two men hold there, straining and struggling.

But Panther has a mission - and that's not battling it out in an epic fistfight with Captain America.

"You do not understand, Captain. And I do not have time to make you understand. I will not stop you saving your people, if you give me what is mine."

His gaze turns back, over his shoulder, at Zwei's revealed form as a giant robot, and the weapon-and-arms lock breaks, the agile hero backflipping to land on a car, denting the roof as he lands in a crouch. "Klaue is a murderer and a villain. By stopping me, you are protecting him. Is that what the Avengers stand for?!" Black Panther bellows at Captain America, as the Vibranium is tug-of-war'ed by Zwei, being attacked by Ryouma, while dragging around Spider-Man and drawing Nova's mind-powers around.
Zwei     Oryou smashes straight into Asche's outstretched palm, dead on at high speed. There is only the barest second of feeling like she hit metal, and then it's like she hit the platonic ideal of something hard. Traces of light shimmer through the tesellating patter beneath the armour, briefly visible as a bright ripple of energy from where she'd impacted, and then cratered the target hand into the parkade wall. The next second, those huge, clawed fingers snap shut around her like a venus flytrap, and Asche spins around at the waist to pitch her through a whole row of cars to the opposite wall, not actually reorienting his body to do so, with weird robot flexibility. ||"Refrain from standing up."|| He rumbles. Unlikely.

    Even when he spins back around to grab it with his other hand, Spider-Man is still in the way. Webs snap against his arm to the asphalt, stuck almost dragging the ground in this cramped space, and he pulls on it savagely until the floor itself gives out first, pulling out a chunk of parkade rather than breaking the web. A piece of pillar is abruptly stuck to his hand the next second, requiring a moment to sink his talons into the hefty boulder of cement and crush it to find powder with an explosive crack. It's slowing him down, getting in his way, but not stopping him. He ploughs inexorably forward.

    <<"Oh excellent! Here I was worrying I might have scared you away!">> Weiss says, absolutely not expressing worry. <<"I like changed men. Either they stopped acting solely on their feelings and thus became smarter than everyone else, went crazy and are thus really entertaining, or some mix of both! Be seeing you then!">> She gives a casual, quippy, two-fingered salute before the electrical wave fries the drone.

<<Felt that one.>>
||Ignore it. Penetrative amperage two orders of magnitude too low.||
<<Weird though. What do lions have to do with electricity?>>
Zwei     While Asche is bogged down with Oryou and Spider-Man, the latter and Nova are /still/ scrambling over the capsule. Weiss bends through space again, appears right between the two, and lashes out with both hands in almost the invisible period between eye movements, looking to punch Nova dead on in the stomach, snatch Peter by the arm, throw him past her, grab the vial, then use it as an anchor point to swing him into Nova as well. Not only does she appear out of thin air to do this, the instant before she does, Nova's electronics (technically whatever Spider-Man has too, if it's even relevant) are /blasted/ with intrusion signals, firing every error warning possible all at the same time as something taps into systems that aren't even supposed to be wireless, just to make the warp-and-smack that much more of a blindside.

    <<"I'd say 'you knew I could do this, right? I mean you saw me do it right in front of you already', but on average, it takes a human three point five repetitions before they begin factoring something into their spot decisionmaking processes. Let's see how long it takes you to figure out I'm in two places at the same time.">> Not actually content to just stop there, she extends her arm, depresses her wrist, and her 'unpainted' toned skin splits to show the gold-gleaming point of some weapon aperture or another.

<<N-3 compound, 500 psi.>>

    A stream of something or other blasts out at Nova and Peter, but there's no time to really tell what it is until it detonates, and detonates, and continues detonating. Where a flamethrower is gel that burns when exposed to air, they're being suppressed with something that violently explodes at the slightest vibration, throwing up a constant wall of rib-pounding, concrete-shattering, skin-blistering explosions. <<"Seriously, you came in and smashed up all the stuff I was paying for, and now you want the thing I already own? Are you mugging me for real? How about you call it a win that you broke all the damn hardware I was paying for, and then go home before I really hurt you. The guy in the themed pajamas can deal with it. I don't care if he used to have it -it's mine now, and stealing it 'back' doesn't make it un-mine. Last warning, so, let me say it again, this time in my own voice~!>>

    <<"Do you fucking mind?">>
Steve Rogers      So that happened.

     First, the Black Panther stops Captain America's shield after matching him in a fistfight. That, in and of itself, is amazing. Then the buyer becomes a giant robot, and takes a huge swing at Panther. Panther simply dodges out of the way. Steve does not.

     Steve eats a massive hit to the face. It sends him flying into a nearby car. It sends him *through* a nearby car. Glass explodes everywhere. Metal groans under stress. Several airbags explode. To top it all off, and to add to all of the chaos, a car alarm starts blaring, drowning out noise.

     That hurt.

     A second later, the car alarm goes silent. Steve pulls himself free, pulling down his mask. His face is bloody. His armor is torn, and it looks like he tore it some more, and some skin, getting out of the car. Captain America isn't invulnerable, after all.

     But his shield is.

     He responds to Panther first. "Klaue's not here. Now if you want to get him, we can talk about it after this is over, but if you're willing to hold innocent people hostage over a hunk of metal, then no matter how hard you argue, you're not the type I'm willing to let have it."

     But he doesn't have time to go at Panther or Asche. Not with Weiss popping out that apparatus. Steve Rogers reacts on instinct, doing exactly what you'd expect from Captain America.

     He dives into Nova and Spider-Man, tackling them out of the way. As soon as they're both behind him, he swings up his shield, crouching down to make himself as small a target as possible and give himself as much coverage room as possible.

     The explosions still aren't fun to sit through. Fire, heat, pressure, violence. The ground cracks. Cars crack. Steve braces himself as he's pushed back, as the shield absorbs as much force as possible and then just keeps on going. When the assault is finally over-

     -the shield comes whirling out of the smoke right for Weiss's face, aimed to bounce off her and then into Asche.

     "Funny thing," Cap says to both of them as he stands up, "But I've got a little problem with people who think that just because they're strong they can do whatever they want."

     "Where I'm from, we call those bullies." Steve cracks his knuckles and starts walking forward. "And I don't like bullies."

     "So I'm gonna give you one more chance. You can lay down your weapons and surrender, or we can do this the hard way."

     He takes up a fighting stance. He's waiting for the shield to come back to him. He moves left and right, like a boxer, bouncing on his heels.

     "Because I can do this all night."

     "But somebody like you? I bet you've got places to be."
Thomas Alva Edison     "Alright," Edison says, looking towards Archer and then Seras. "Thanks for the assist, now...lets go help punch out a giant robot and keep a mysteriously dangerous metal from falling into the hands of a vigilanty and a giant evil robot." he says, as some more things happen. It appears there are some more COMPLICATIONS.

    "I can take care of myself. Go help Steve. I have...SCIENCE to do."

    Okay, so there should be some more spare parts...he needs...oh hey, here we go, a LARGE POLE.

    Edison moves, once more playing McGuiver as he fishes out wire out of the discarded drones. Ok...so now he needs a power source. The drones power source should do, if he can get one working...but he needs something else.

    His eyes look towards one of the trucks.

    "That'll do," he says, and moves towards it. Pushing it back over on it's right side, he starts messing with the front of it. Connecting the rod to the front of it, and soddering the rod to the front, before wrapping the wire around. Connecting this to a core, and shoving it into a nearby hole created by the initial fight...

    More wires connect, as he jury rigs up another unit.

    Edison, large as he is gets into the Van and turns it over with some more DC antics. The car's electric battery kicks on the core, which activates the electromagnet.

    Once the magnet has a hold, he attempts to turn it on the vibranium canisters, to try and drag them to the CAR.

    Edison is working overtime tonight.
Ryouma Sakamoto     Oryou is flung halfway across the parking garage, through several vehicles, and through a wall. That actually hurt. Perhaps unwisely, however, she declines to follow the advice, rising - or hovering, really - from her own crater. There's some black blood dripping from underneath her uniform.

    Ryouma reaches for his blade, seeing Weiss distracted with Peter and another person, but pausing a moment to talk. Oh, this is rude. This is so, incredibly, rude.

    His course of action is, that is.

    Blue flames erupt around his katana, and with a dash of superspeed, he makes a swing for Weiss from behind, trying to maneuver perfectly between the unending explosions surrounding her, looking for an opening.

    Oryou coordinates, in that just as Ryouma rockets for Weiss, she rockets right back for Asche. Her fist pulls back, wreathes itself in flames, and she intends to deliver a single blow to the large robot's head - if she can reach it. It might end up being somewhere else, if it can intercept her. It certainly had the strength to.
Tony Stark Amon, meanwhile in his Mecha-Tank which just disabled two trucks, has one truck full of insensate, unconscious dumbasses. The heavy shock-therapy tazed the shit out of them, their car, everything - and the smoke tumbling forth from the engine indicates, it's not going anywhere.

The other van, with a working engine, is quickly seized and cannibalized by the KING OF INVENTION to create a massive DC Powered Electromagnet, which has 0% chance of exploding and 100% chance of SEIZING THE MEANS OF PRODUCTI- wait.

Wait, wrong figure of history.

As Shocker and some of the Vulture goons slip out of the back and side of the non-shocked van, they see Archer, the Lion King, and Mobile Suit Bend'em, they just---
        Start bugging out. Just beating feet, leaving their exotech weapons behind (except Shocker, who is wearing his).

As the PRESI-KING aims his massive electromagnet down the parking garage towards the Vibranium canister, there's a sound of something screeching.

And squealing.

And...--

Oh hey it's the """Business EveryMan"""'s tactical twelve wheeler attack rover. That's not a vibranium canister! But Vibranium isn't magnetic.

The entire truck full of weapons grade material and 3D printing technology, however, is VERY magnetic.
Nova Terra     Nova misses her chance to grab the canister as the giant robot with the giant hand gets in her way. She is forced to drop, sliding across the ground a few metres before pushing herself back up onto her feet and stopping. She spins around to face the canister again, still trying to tug it her way but it's proving difficult. She only briefly registers Spider-Man's words, "Cat people? You mean Lionhead over there? No, I'm not with him." A mere moment before she has a chance to act, her HUD suddenly goes all screwey. Interference!? Then that means-

    Nova isn't quick enough to react, the punch hitting her in the gut and sending her stumbling back. And before she has a chance to recover, she finds a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man crashing into her. Barely able to extract herself from the spider, she notices the built-in weapon aimed at her. Only for her to take another blow! This time as Captain America tackles her and Spider-Man out of the way, before absorbing the majority of the explosions with his shield. Impressive.

    Raising her visor up to rest on her head, Nova sets her eyes on Weiss. But she does aside to Captain America, "Thanks, handsome."

    Nova reaches up to retrieve the sword attached to the back of her suit. Swinging it down beside her, she channels her power into it, the blade of blue psionic energy lighting up. She begins to circle around Weiss, apparently fine with assisting Rogers against this one. Giving Weiss a cold stare, Nova responds, "You talk too much." She lunges forwards fast, swinging the monomolecular psi-blade to try and separate the hand holding the Vibranium from the rest of Weiss's body.
Archer EMIYA      Edison is safe, and Rho Aias didn't have any of its layers penetrated. This is good, and Archer can't help but give a smug smirk with how perfectly this all played out.

The pink barrier evaporates, and a bow finds itself once again in the moon man's hand. A sword turned arrow finds itself nocked the moment the bow is fully formed, and the escaping goons would soon find themselves being shot at with a volley of arrows.

Of course, Archer wasn't trying to kill them with this more so than just stop them, but given the nature of arrows, they're probably gonna be seriously hurting.
Amon After a while of shuffling vans around ineffectually, Amon comes to the conclusion that there's an easier way to do this and backs out of the garage. One of the vans gets hijacked and turned into a... giant electromagnet, which gets it out of the way. That leaves the other one, which is full of unconscious guys but definitely not going to move. He considers that for a moment, and... just uses his cable-arm to tow it out of the garage and put it on the transport truck he brought the mecha tank in on in the first place.

You might think that he just did this to get it out of the way, but no.

The driver of the transport truck immediately leaves with it to offload it elsewhere. He'll probably take the opportunity to dump the local thugs so they're not his problem anymore.

As he guides his mecha back into the now-clear garage, he pauses back at the entrance as the /other/ van's inhabitants decide to drop their gear and run. Amon gets on his hand radio and commands his people on the ground to pick that up, and then turns to slope down towards the ongoing conflict.

But he stops, because Edison is using a van as an electromagnet and attracting something even bigger which -- you guessed it -- is sort of an obstacle.

With an air of annoyance, Amon sighs and regards the situation through the portholes. After a quick exchange, he unbuckles himself and slips out of the hatch to be replaced by one of his minions.

Being there is better than /not/ being there, even if it's not in a mecha tank.

With a straight-backed posture and his hands clasped behind his back, Amon descends the sloping ramps of the parking garage towards the main body of the conflict.
Spider-Man     "Lady let go of the thing!! LET GO OF THE THING, INVISIBLE LADYYYYYY!!!" Spider-Man shouts with ever-increasing urgency with his goggles shut tight by hardware hijack as he's about to be thrown, and then slams hard -- either into her, or past her, depending on how she moves. "HURK!" He takes a second to recover, gasping for breath and rebooting the dumpy pieces of a Raspberry Pi that keep his goggles working. Then he's tackled out of danger byt /Steve Rogers/, which is an /extremely/ good situation for Spider-Man. His goggles are wide. "Holy--" He starts, before remembering his language. "What /was/ that?" He sounds impressed /and/ horrified. "That was like a CL-20 flamethrower!!" That's the kind of thing only Vibranium can deal with, good lord.

    He still has the web on the vial, but rushes up to face down Weiss and Zwei with as much confidence as he can muster, swiftly reloading and "cocking" his webshooters dramatically. "That an Einstein-Rosenberg bridge you keep making? Tele-transport? Oh /man/." He glances to one side, and notes that Captain America is... /far/ more capable of dealing with this than he is, and he doesn't want to get in the way. "Look, I'd love to talk science but I've really gotta make sure I impress Mister Stark and Mister Rodgers, so--!" He lashes out with as fast a rush of webs as he can manage! All meant to attach the Vibranium to... The terrain! It's supposed to make it as difficult and as inconvenient as possible to hold on to it, because he's worried Weiss is going to try to teleport out of it, and this is the best shot he has at keeping it out of her hands because he is /not/ opening those fingers for sure.
Thomas Alva Edison     Edison faces down a mistake in the form of a giant truck. Frustraited, he sighs...his big projects sometimes end up like this. He, however, can at least try and midigate the screw up the best that he can. He drives the car in reverse, trying to drag the large weaponfilled danger semi away from the intersection, trying to keep things cleared up so others could get through and do something. Right as it moves asside, Edison suts the magnet off and keepts driving back, hopefully, he can move faster than the spiraling druck.

    He stops a moment later, because he's run out of room.

    Well...lets hope his calculations are right..
Zwei     Weiss pours on the N-3 only as long as it takes to assess that she isn't going to break the shield with it, or critically exhaust the man holding it with her current supply. It only takes the briefest of penetrating scans to detect those musculature and skeletal abnormalities, and that the shield has more or less the same material composition as what's in the Vibranium capsule. She doesn't lower her arm just yet, internally cycling ammunition types in a way that takes a split second to reconfigure, before the eyes in the back of her head (that is, Asche, and vice versa) spot Ryouma.

    Giving Captain America a break from his duties, she becomes a blur that corkscrews the concrete underneath her, going from blasting Steve Rogers to a neck-level heel kick at Ryouma between blinks. The back end of the spin turns her opposite facing him in a duelist's pose, an unfamiliar handgun already in her grip, which barks flashes of blue-white lightning and screams flechettes of hypersonic metal, way in excess of the specs it had when Zwei first got it.

    Looking for an opening is tough until Nova zips in and it becomes two versus one. Weiss tosses the canister into the air as the psi blade comes, now passing through the space between her hand and it, which no longer contains her wrist. The Vibranium itself is stuck to the wall by a precision blast of web shot through the mayhem. The space around her freed hand shifts a surreal shade of violet, and comes swinging back around with some sort of electrocuting prod of brushed cobalt metal completely mismatched to the handgun. It swings into Nova, then snaps right back around to Ryouma, adeptly managing the two of them until Ryouma's katana cleaves right through the mass-produced thing.

    The edge bites into Weiss' upper shoulder, where it burns away a portion of her jacket and cuts into what feels like an anvil made of solid diamond-coated uranium, flashing with the same pattern as Asche's armour, albeit much more faintly. His sword gets wedged just deep enough to be an issue for the both of them, before a snap kick goes out to his midsection to launch him back. <<"Nah, you see, however much I talk doesn't matter! Unlike you, I don't need to dedicate any significant amount of cognitive power to exchanging garbage words with garbage people! It's not really a bad habit at all, unlike your and your type's penchant for dedicating their energy to 'witty' banter.">> A wheeling smack of the butt of the prod hits the inside of Nova's arm to clear her psi-blade, Weiss points the offhand gun directly at her forehead. and then there is no longer any viable configuration and orientation of limbs and accessible objects to outmaneuver the Vibranium shield flying at her face. She has to sacrifice her aim at Nova to block the thing from hitting her straight in the optics.
Seras Victoria     This whole situation is getting a bit hectic! The pair of MINIATURE SUPER ROBOTS causing all kinds of trouble in the parking garage are at the center of the Vibranium scandal. And she...

    She has a cannon. It's really only good at destroying things. Not apprehending anyone. It's no way to bring down a criminal unless there's no other way!

    So the Zwei units call for other tactics.

    Seras drops the Harkonnen wordlessly. Its job is done here. It's destroyed Hammer Drones and disabled vehicles and now it can only kill people. And things that might be people.

    And that's something she's not going to do.

    So she walks forward, making a VERY distasteful face at all of the goons that are still running for stairs and the ramp.

    WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

    Summoning all her strength, the Draculina moves to intercept many of them. It's kind of hard to see exactly what's going on though! The blur stops in front of one and her arm moves... and dudes get sent flying backwards with considerable force to slam into the ground and columns. There'll probably be some broken bones and cracked ribs, but fatalities only if someone unluckily lands the wrong way!

    "You guys should just stay down and be quiet! I don't have time to cuff you all. And the other guy's shooting SWORDS at people with a bow." The fact that trying to escape under these conditions is BLOODY STUPID should be painfully obvious now! Literally. Right?

    This does nothing about the Zwei problem though. Seras begins to look around for some convenient wreckage she might just be able to HURL at one of the robots!
Zwei     Asche is free enough to fight Oryou, but carrying so much concrete on him, he's slower than before. He catches her punch in the palm of his hand (admittedly, easier to do when they're huge), but the flying force of it pushes him back away from the Vibranium again. The tiny girl drives the gigantic Armiger grinding back through the concrete until he engages microgravity magnets and gains electromagnetic traction with the rebar under his feet. The place where the flames hit flickers and sparks as light 'leaks' out of the hexagonal pattern, along with a haze of ice cold carbon dioxide and burnt silicate. ||"You are still in the way. I advised you otherwise."|| Asche seems about to hit her back, as that would be the combat robot thing to do, as his much more substantial armguard on his opposite wrist splits, except then he aims it straight at Ryouma's back instead, ignoring Oryou to fire a whistling ballistic shell containing the tiniest pinhead of antimatter directly for his spine. He knows /exactly/ how this plays out. The shield is what flies out of left field when Weiss armblocks it, cutting into her subdermal armour, spanging away, going whizzing through the air like a frisbee for Asche's head who then promptly headbutts it. The angled, 'knight's helmet' construction of his face, along with his forward sensor 'horn' contributes to aggressively smashing it straight down so that it bites into the concrete, as bad as that is for sensor acuity as that is.

    Weiss lowers her arm just enough to glare at Steven over it, discarding the ruined prova and producing a rather standard-looking combat knife to cross under her pistol wrist. <<"That /is/ funny. I have a little problem with people that think because they're morally upstanding by their culture's worthlessly arbitrary standards, they have any relevance whatsoever when it comes to who gets to do what. Where I come from -well we don't really use words, but the idiom translates to 'idiot' well enough.">> Asche is stepping on the shield to keep it down and out of Steve's hands, but if Weiss figured that enough to take out Rogers, she'd have attacked already. It's easy to forget that talking with speech takes a log longer than conversing with ansibles.
<<Alright. I tried the low-cost option. Energy expended on words, azoazide azide, and level two hand-to-hand combat patterns turned out to be a waste.>>

||There is an additional signature on hard approach, analysis unlikely to also direct his efforts towards the spearman. With the number of additional targets reduced, escalation to pre-tactical step two would be inadvisable.||
<<That's the Aussterben half of me speaking I guess, so who am I to argue?>>
||Spinning up the Zìxiang Máodùn Harvester. Gauge symmetry established. Angular momentum at 1.56M and stable.||
<<Post-tactical step eight.>>
||There are no halves in this matter. All of me was necessary.||
<<Let's give 'em a taste.>>
Zwei     Thomas Edison has caused the parkade to drop off SHIELD's sensors when his EM wave blew out every piece of bootleg chitauri electronics in the place, completely ruining everything Zwei had come for except one. Zwei returns the favour by immediately putting the parkade back on SHIELD's radar, as well as Stark's, the national guard's, and DEFCON readiness stations. An energy spike usually fit for the first few nanoseconds of a nuclear warhead going off is suddenly screaming on every piece of sensor equipment that can pick it up, fucking up street lights and car alarms in a wide radius just from the particle castoff. The hexagonal 'mesh' through Asche's body turn to a maze of conduits that carry white-hot beads of golden light, merging and splitting across his exterior in strange traces of intricate geometry, quickly coalescing around his shoulder units. His pauldrons split open, and at first they look like they've burst into flames, but it's the /air/ catching fire from the waste heat.

    A wave of light that is heat and heat that is light flashes the surroundings; a literal omnidirectional laser in the strictest sense -a solid wall rather than a tiny beam point- spot blasts the parkade in such a way that the ceiling, and each floor above it, completely disappear. Everything above eight feet is just /gone/. Tall trucks have lost the last couple of feet of their clearance, leaving clean, melted lines. The thousands of tons of concrete have been completely atomized. The haze in the air is the gas left over from all the hydrogen and oxygen disappearing for a second, barely visible in the natural sunlight that is now streaming into the previously underground area. Even directed upwards, the blast is so white-paper intense that it becomes impossible to breathe for a few seconds until the air pressure equalizes the new vacuum, and the backwash is so bad that being behind multiple cars and/or pillars risks first degree burns all over anyways.

    Weiss reappears from a floating hypercube blob, having teleported to not be in the blast zone, and snatches the Vibranium from the slagged wall; it is the sole retrievable thing to walk away with after the heroes wrecked all of Klaue's and the Vulture's merchandise and stole Zwei's truck full of expensive crap. She tosses it up and down in her palm a couple of times, faux-squinting up into the sun. <<"Output was 25% below projected.">> ||"I will adjust the angle by thirty five degrees for the subsequent firing."|| Subsequent firing. As in, again. Those are some words that were said by a person. <<"Eugh, really? They're scrambling fliers? Do they really have no idea what they're dealing with.">>

||Severing gauge symmetry with Zìxiang Máodùn Harvester.||
<<Pain in the ass that has to be turned off in order to fold.>>
||What would 'unstoppable' mean otherwise?||

    The space around the two of them bleeds red. The ruined parkade setup warps as if viewed through the bottom of a shot glass. The obnoxious answer to Tony Stark and the coast guard coming to the rescue is to not fly back out. They fold through space.
Steve Rogers      Steve responds to being hit on the same way he usually does: with a confused "you're welcome?"

     And then everything goes sideways. He's not passing around quips anymore - the shield's out of his hands and he's in a fistfight with two robots. Steve's fast enough to keep pace, ducking the knife, swinging in for punches, and he's strong enough that he can keep up with it, and he's durable enough that he can eat a stab or two and keep on going, and he's /skilled/ enough to not only keep the robot from getting lethal hits on him but keep *gaining*. He's not just tough, he's not just fast, he's not just strong, and he's not just good - he's /all/ of the above, *and* he's dedicated, *and* he's determined. The blood, the sweat, that's every day for Steve Rogers.

     And then they back off. And they start to glow.

     Nothing glowing has ever been a good thing.

     Steve dives. It's the kind of hail-mary bullshit dive you only see in movies, the kind of insane dive where you can't possibly expect to make it. The heat pressure is intense enough to start searing through his costume as he shoves his hand into the concrete under Asche and just tears the shield out in the process.

     "BEHIND ME!"

     "ARCHER, REINFORCE!"

     And then he makes himself as small a target as possible and brings up the shield.

     The heat, the force, the pressure is enormous. Steve Rogers has been in World War II. He's been nearly struck by bombs. He's been nearly killed by explosions. He's been ground-floor of mines going off. He's no stranger to this taste.

     He'll live.

     He stands, wavering, wounds flash-cauterized by the sheer force of the fire, and stumbles as if he's going to stop them from getting away.

     He doesn't.

     But he takes a damn good swing at them.

     Steve exhales. He runs his fingers through his hair. He shakes his head.

     Then he looks from Spider-Man to Black Panther to Nova, like he's considering something in his head.

     Wearily, he says, "You're all under arrest."
Ryouma Sakamoto     Asche and Weiss do know exactly how it's going to play out. Ryouma is kicked away - effortlessly, really, he's not nearly as strong as he looks - although, at least, this lets him retrieve his blade. For what little good it'll do in the next few seconds.

    Asche's cannon aims at him, not Oryou.

    She snarls.

    She's a bit faster than accounted for, but not quite fast ENOUGH. He ends up taking half the hit - Ryouma the other half - and predictably the man in the white uniform falls to the ground in pain. Probably not crippled and paralyzed as hoped, but certainly in an unpleasant state for a few days.

    Oryou takes it better - the special shells pierce skin and draw blood, although she remains firmly in the air, refusing to be sent flying back on sheer will to protect.

    Which gets worse when she turns her head and sees Ryouma on the floor, bleeding. Oryou's teeth gnash and she turns back to glare at Asche.

    "ORYOU WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THAT!"
    Angry. And glowing.
    And /growing/.

    Oryou's form turns pitch black, and shadows spread through the garage. Oryou's form melts into the puddle of darkness, and out of it emerges the much larger upper body of a great black and red serpent.

    "LIKE A SOARING DRAGON!"

    She lunges. Not for Weiss, who has the objective, but for Asche, who harmed Ryouma. The laser blast scorches black and red scales but does not stop her from charging. The shadows come alive, trying to skewer and drain Asche from every direction - the floor becomes wobbly under his feet, like it's become a sea of black acid. And yet all of that isn't nearly as threatening as the strength of her jaw, because Oryou's intending to snap that giant robot in half if she can help it, damage sustained be damned. It creates a safe zone from the laser, at least. A moving, serpent-shaped safe zone, but a safe zone nonetheless.

    Incidently, this might not be good for the building. Then again the laser caused enough damage as it is, so what's a rampaging dragon possibly going to add to that mess.
Thomas Alva Edison     Edison finally pulls himself out of the car, and starts moving towards the fight itself. Well, some...small feeling of keeping things out of the bad guy's hands. Of course, this comes to a head as he finally gets close enough to...

    Oh well. That doesn't look good. That infact, looks bad. Very...very bad. Combined with the angry dragon, eyeing the form of Ryouma. Well fiddlesticks.

    Edison moves, as fast as he can to grab Ryouma, and PRESIKING ROLL into the safe zone behind Roger's and Archer's shields.

    The Presiking narrows his eyes up. Another threat to his United States. Another thing he has to learn about, to protect them.
Amon Sometimes, you have an image to uphold.

Other times, there's a giant fucking flash of light that means you don't really have to worry about the momentary usage of powers you shouldn't have because nobody important is going to see it-- and besides, don't have to connect it to you regardless. As Amon realizes the imminence of the danger, he reaches out into the surroundings with his mind for a water source, any water source. The fire sprinklers laced through the building -- imminent as their destruction is -- provides it. As the light races upwards and outwards, the sprinklers begin to go off and the lines connected to them burst.

A shower of water fills every level of the parking garage, and in every section of it the water does something very... odd. For a moment it is unnaturally pressurized, a curtain of laser-refracting liquid that diminishes and scatters the laser even as it sears through the building and puts a gigantic hole through it.

In the immediate aftermath the water lines simply continue to leak, their contents forming a steadily easing waterfall that drifts down through the hole caused by the tremendous attack.

Amon himself, once the light clears-- can be found underneath the toppled over mecha tank, the pilot of which literally upended it to act as a shield for the pair of them. A substantial portion of its surface is melted, and a segment of its cockpit near the top is completely sheared off.

He did not expect this. He /should/ have, but he panicked a little there. The masked man is pushing himself up off of his belly by the time anybody gets a good look at him.
Tony Stark As the shield wall forms up, one of the members of the group - anyone who's too slow, or lagging behind, it's uncertain who, but certainly Black Panther can do this - is heaved behind Archer's Rho Aias and Captain America's mighty shield, before the large kite shield joins the pair of men.

And with a gesture, the shield grows, black particles moving along the outside to grow and grow, joining with the others to form one more link in the chain of protection, his own vibranium shield not as powerful as Captain America's...

But together, they can create a wall fit to block even an omnidirectional vaporization attack.

Together, they turn aside the parting shot of the pair of robotic 'villains' after their seizure of the vibranium.

But even then, Seras, Amon, and Archer can stop the fleeing goons with NONLETHAL shot arrows and skyward tosses. Certainly nonlethal. Especially Amon, dumping the truck's occupants off somewhere else, they're certainly fine.

The path down into the parking garage is a strange realm, with areas blocked by the shield wall and perfectly fine, and then an atomized blast zone, on which ground zero there is only glass and magmatically heated earth and stone.

Iron Man - Tony Stark - flies through the now-useless roof, levelling off to survey things before landing near the shield wall, and, looking around, heaves a sigh.

"Is it over? Cap? Thomas? ... Kid?"

Stark's helmet opens up, the faceplate sliding back. "Well... New York isn't a crater, everyone, so... Good job. I think. Medical is on its way, and SHIELD will pick up the guys on the street."

"As for you, King T'chaka, you should know better than the rest of us the emergent law on announcement of operation."

The Black Panther rises, his hands moving to disengage his mask, revealing the mostly-white beard and short white hair. His voice, now that the battle has ended, is serene, if tinged with mild pains. His posture becomes stately, regal. "I had thought, Mister Stark, that this would be a simple affair. You did not have to be involved."

Tony's frown is immense, and the stress around his eyes and brow is pronounced. "Well, it's not every day a walking nuclear threat rolls in to the Tri-State Area. You know, if you don't announce your stealth transports, and they get picked up by New York Air Route Traffic Control, we're gonna make some quick assumptions."

King T'Chaka nods, a genuinely apologetic look crossing his features. "I apologize, Mister Stark, Captain Rogers. Alerting you was not my intention. However, as King of Wakanda, and its protector, the Black Panther, I am honor-bound to pursue Klaue and our stolen vibranium."
Archer EMIYA      there's a shout for Archer to reinforce something, and he turns his attention away from picking off goons for five seconds to see some hot glowing bullshit. Oh. That's not good, that's not good at all.

Archer quickly dismisses his bow once more and books it on over to where the good ol' Captain is bunkering down.

"Alright, let me just..."

Archer really doesn't explain what he's doing, but he reaches out to touch Roger's shield, giving the patriotic disc a temporary boost in its ability to be a shield for a bit.

With that out of the way, Archer stands up and places a hand infront of him once again as four pink petals form a shield infront of him.

Even Rho Aias marvelous defensive powers isn't able to mitigate all the damage however, as a couple layers are peeled off, which results in Archer feeling PAIN.
Nova Terra     "... ... Nova... ... Build-up... ... Energy level..." The warning crackles through Nova's radio, but it's pretty obvious from the transforming robot that something big is about to hit them. Nova runs.

    As the offer of protection from Captain America is made, Nova is not one to pass on it. She dashes towards him, reaching out with her hand in the direction of her blade that had been knocked from her grip. The weapon quickly zips up off the ground and flies into Nova's hand. She then dives behind the forming defensive line at the last moment as the backwash, from the giant burst of energy vaporizing everything, hits.

    Nova opens her eyes, but quickly shields them with a hand as she suddenly finds herself in daylight. A little confused, Nova squints through her fingers, before her eyes go wide at the sight of most of the building above them suddenly being gone. Along with their enemy. And the Vibranium. Damn.

    Slowly getting to her feet, Nova checks herself over. Her suits is rather scorched from the heat of that last attack. And she can feel a number of pained muscles which will probably have bruises on them from the repeated hits she's taken. But overall, it's not too bad.

    And then Rogers drops that bomb. Nova looks shocked for a moment, but then a smile begins to form. Soon she's laughing. But it doesn't last long. She finishes with a grin, "Arrest me? That's cute." She points upwards, "That robot just vaporized most of this building." She points at Oryou, "That's a freaking DRAGON!" She lets out another laugh, "And you wants to ARREST me?"

    Nova glances up and watches as Tony lands nearby. She glances him over for a moment, before complimenting, "Nice suit." Certainly more compact than the bulky Marine armour. Impressive, considering. She pays attention to the conversation though, curious about some of the specifics of these people.
Steve Rogers      Steve, almost reflexively upon King T'Chanka unmasking, says, "Sorry."

     It's wildly unclear as to what. He would've explained, but now Oryou is a dragon. That will probably mean Nova's going to get away, Spider-Man will probably rabbit, and the confiscated goods are going to get destroyed, not to mention a ton of collateral.

     That means that Steve Rogers is still on the clock.

     He doesn't have time to deal with all the political bullshit, and in truth, he's almost kind of glad for this. It means he can go do something productive, even if it's calm down somebody else's rampaging dragon ghost wife. And, as he runs for the advancing Oryou, for the first time, he really, really misses when all he had to deal with was laser Nazis.

     Oryou is enormously strong, thrashing and spilling black acid all over the floor. Steve just wades through it. His boots are already melting. It's hitting his flesh. But he wades through it, gets himself right in the way of the massive dragon woman, brings his hands up, and grabs her by the teeth.

     He is not as strong as she is.

     But he is not trying to outstrength her.

     The impact is tremendous. It cracks the ground under him. It forces him backwards. But all he needs is a second.

     "You'll crush him!"

     Steve's voice carries over the sound of the dragon. "You'll crush him, Missus Oryuu. You'll crush Mister Sakkamato. Worse, you'll make it impossible for the medics to get down here and help him. I need you to calm down."

     "I need you to calm down."
Tony Stark Tony lands with a 'clunk' on the remaining ground floor of the parking garage, his faceplate closing as he does so. "Boat Ghosts. Right." He mutters, some of his stress bleeding off.

To Nova, he points -- a finger at her. "Ma'am, I'm going to take a wild guess and presume you're... I dunno, multiversal special forces. We've got a little thing around here called the Report and Respond Initiative, or the RRI, which means when you get into our house, you ring the doorbell before letting yourself in. Next time - and I bet there'll be a next time - you come to SHIELD's territory, or you interfere on an Avengers operation, you need to stand and declare yourself. It's not sneaky, but it helps us sift out who the bad guys are."

Iron Man turns to Spider-Man. "Listen, Spider-Lad... Boy..." he coughs. "Man. Ok, listen, you're local. There's some youtube clips of you slinging around, so I'm just gonna presume you're here on some friendly, neighborhood patrol. Next time, leave this stuff to the pros, OK? And if you do want to get in trouble..."

Tony shifts his stance, gesturing dismissively at Parker. "Friday, does this kid have a phone? Push the usual forms over wireless."

Spider-Man's phone, IF THE RINGER IS ON IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2018, rings. Or buzzes! It's unclear. But his phone recieves a standard SHIELD registration form. "Fill that out and leave it at the desk at Avengers tower, say Tony Stark sent you. Wear the costume. We'll get you set up, and call this whole deal your debut, alrighty?"

Iron Man claps his hands with a metallic 'chonk!'. It sounds not like a clap at all. "Alright! I've done the boring forms and riot act, Steve, how goes it well off the nautical charts?"

Dragons. He means dragons.
Spider-Man     Peter's entire body is flooded with awareness of danger. Every aspect of the air around him screams incoming risk, and so when the massive weapon discharges, it's like it's discharing towards a coiled spring. Spidey dives fast behind Steve's shield, shouting in panic, "WHOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!" He /screams/, having to hold himself low to the ground as the air pressure and vacuum both make it nearly impossible for him to stay on the ground without his wall-crawling power. His entire body is lifted up simply from the shockwave of the force that the shield is blocking, and he has to pull himself desperately down to stop his light fifteen-year-old body from handstanding directly into the blast.

    When it settles, he sort of flops facefirst into the ground, panting heavily through his mask, his chest heaving. "Th... Thanks Captain Rogers. Thanks." He stays on the ground for almost a minute before he reacts. "I can't get /arrested/, my-- There's people who will /freak/, it'll get them all upset, I won't be able to help anyone else, I'll-- Woah!! Big dragon!!" Spider-Man starts, panicking and barely stumbling to his feet. His goggle lenses go wide as he sees the massive dragon threaten what remains of the structure above. Then he turns to the side and sees Iron Man approach, and his eyes go wider. IRON MAN!! "Woah!! Mister Stark, hey! I'm--" AAnd now he's looking at the cat guy, and he visibly swallows and goes a bit pale. "Woah, wait a minute! The cat guy was a king?! I'm not arrested and going to a /dungeon/ right?!"

    He looks tense enough to start fleein, but still mostly starstruck by the presence of /real Avengers/. Those goggle-lenses are wide and tense, especially for someone as battered and bruised as he is.

    Then here's Tony! Oh thank goodness Tony is being... Apparently okay! "It's... It's Spider-Man." He mutters briefly, before his phone starts ringing. He has a, uh, yodeling ringtone? What's that about? Anyway, it looks like it worked. "Woah! Oh, like, a license! Do I need to be older for-- Right! I'll, yeah! I'll be by soon, Mister Stark, promise! Oh, I can just go help out with--" He leaps up, fliping elegantly through the air and through the gap in the ceiling. "Hang on, hang on..." He starts focusing his business on evading the dragon and sort of limiting the damage of the rampage.

    This, at least, is where he can shine. He clambers around walls and ceilings tethering structural points together and making sure whatever's left of the structure doesn't collapse, using webs with tensile strength suited for keeping bridges up. "I got it! I got this. Everything but the dragon part! I'll handle it."
Ryouma Sakamoto     Oryou rampages against phantoms that aren't there anymore. It's not that surprising, although it's not exactly environment-friendly.

    With Steve putting his life on the line though, and Edison having secured Ryouma, it seems calming the angry dragon is... not too difficult, at least this time.

    The shadows withdraw, and with them everything awful. Oryou's form shrinks back down to human-sized, and while she spares Steve a quick glance, she quickly rushes to Edison and Ryouma's side.

    She is crying, and evidently emotional, which is absolutely unlike her so far. It's going to be hard to separate her from Ryouma to treat him.
Nova Terra     Nova crosses her arms and gives Tony an intense stare as he lectures her. But after seeming to consider it for a moment, she smiles and waves a hand a little dismissively, "Fine. I guess it's not too much to ask for." She looks over to see Oryou returning to a non-dragon form. Seems like things have finally calmed down completely. Nova turns away, starting to walk away. But she pauses and turns her head back, calling out to Spider-Man as he works to stabilize the building, "Hey, Spider! You did pretty good!"

    Nova resumes walking away, blue light washing over her as she vanishes from view. But before she's completely invisible she raises a hand in a parting wave, "See you later, boys." And Nova is gone.
Amon Amon finishes extricating himself from his uncomfortable situation and resumes his normal stance. Straight-backed, hands clasped behind his back. He surveys his damaged mecha tank, and the Equalist who was underneath with him. Then he turns, and walks calmly to join the others-- particularly, Tony. Who is the /reason/ that he is here in the first place. He assumes he's not getting lectured because his presence here is coincidental.

His gaze turns slowly towards Nova, lingering there momentarily.

Then it returns to Tony.

Speaking frankly, he doesn't know about a lot of the things that Tony is rambling on about, and the only reason he hasn't asked some very silly questions so far is because the situation was just too serious. Right now he's tempted, but there's enough going on that it can wait.

After a moment of lingering in awkward silence he says, "This world is refreshingly rich in men who have made themselves powerful through ingenuity."

"I think that I will visit more often." Amon adds, as he observes Spider-Man reinforcing the structure of the building with his webbing.